158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



given l)y Professor LincHcy, in the London Horticultural Trans- 

 actions, Vol. 2, Nc"w Scries. 



Whether any winter as extraordinary, all things considered, 

 has occurred in New England, we have no sufficient data for 

 ascertaining. The cold summer of 1816, was, however, an 

 instance of equally rare and extraordinary deviation from the 

 usual course of our seasons, and if not unexampled, has cer- 

 tainly been since unparalleled. It is probable tliat every 

 period of twenty or thirty years has exhibited, with a very few 

 if any exceptions, all the varieties of which our seasons are 

 susceptible. Much of this able paper of Professor Lindley, is, 

 as might be expected, principally interesting to English garden- 

 ers, but there are some deductions which may be drawn from 

 it of a more general character, and applicable to our own, or 

 any other climate. Professor Liudley's statements go far to 

 overthrow the position of Mr. Knight, that the English winters 

 have softened during the last century. The thermometer is 

 stated by Lindley to have sunk in many places of the counties 

 of Kent and Middlesex from three to thirteen degrees below 

 zero, and at Chiswick, it stood at 4^°. Had Mr. Knight 

 lived to that time, it can scarcely be doubted that he would 

 have seen reason for a great, if not entire change in his im- 

 pressions. There is, I believe, no instance on record of a 

 degree of cold materially greater in the southern part of Eng- 

 land. This paper clearly shows, or rather strikingly illustrates 

 the fact, that extremes of temperature, especially those which 

 occur suddenly and last hut a little lohile, are often confined 

 within very narrow local boundaries, and that the heat or cold 

 of places within a very short distance of each other, may vary 

 exceedingly at any given moment. The temperature of any 

 spot is materially affected by large objects, natural or artificial, 

 witliin the immediate vicinity, and so great effects are produced 

 by the radiation of heat on the one hand, and by shelter on the 

 other, that we often find thermometers in different parts of the 

 same city or village, or even of the same garden, differing several 

 degrees. Mr. Daniels states (Horticultural Transactions) that 

 he has known a difference of thirty degrees of temperature be- 

 tween the top of a hill of moderate height, and the valley at 

 the foot. Not the least interesting of the facts observed this 



